Friday, July 31, 2009

I would appreciate it if you stopped writing columns that prey on people's emotions and disparage individuals when it is easy and convenient for you to do so. Not only is your attack on David Ortiz of speculative nature on a court ordered sealed document it also leaves out the good he has done for people through reaching out to the community. Of course the only thing that matters he tried to be a little better at his job, have you ever cheated on your taxes, have you ever broken the speed limit, have you ever knowingly hurt someone? How is it you find yourself on Mount Pious smiting those who break your moral code?

But I understand, you created the curse, you perpetuated it and you stand to make money from a new one. You ruined Nomar, Pedro, Manny and now Papi, men my childhood was based on. I hope you're (corrected at the behest of Mr. Shaughnessy) happy.

Sincerely,

Kevin Doyle

Edit: In his response Mr. Shaugnessy noticed that i put YOUR instead of YOU'RE like I should have, that was after he told me to grow up.

She makes music, usually sad, but is really cool to see in concert (scroll down). You should be happy for Neil.

3) a. In entering "Kevin Doyle" into Google you have come here. More than likely you are looking for an Irish soccer star by the same name, sadly I am not he. Try Google again and click any link other than this one you will get something about him. He looks like this:

As you can see I bare little resemblance to him. Although I do bare a striking resemblance to this guy.

b. You Googled (a word that is surprisingly not a word in Google's spell check) "Kevin Doyle green" in which case you were surprised to find that I advocate things such as the invasions of Mexico and Canada to guarantee our energy independence. That's because you are looking for Kevin L Doyle the professor of Green Energy (kevinLdoyle@gmail.com) and not a college kid begging for a job. Speaking of which....

c. If you have come to my blog through doing research about me in order to decide if I am worthy of offering a job you should know that I will never sell out to the man and give up this blog.

OK that's a lie, I would willingly stop and even delete this blog if it meant a full time job. What? If this blog only ends up being a way to get a job through deleting it then I see it as a win.

Monday, July 27, 2009

As I have noted before I am taking a "A History of Boston" as one of my final two classes (which I have to pass by the way). In this class there are a couple books I have to read, books I may or may not have read if it were not for this class. The first book I enjoyed very little and concluded that because of it's title, appearance and plot there is very little chance I would have ever read it.

The Soiling of Old Glory by Louis P. Masur catalogs the issues and the incident behind the famous photo by photographer Stanley Forman. It uses the infamous photo to deconstruct the outbreak of racial animosity in Boston during the 1970's so we can better understand why it happened. For me it read much like a 200 page Wikipedia article, informative but at the same time dry and boring.

Having read All Souls by Michael Patrick MacDonald when I was younger I already have a fair grasp on the riots and violence that surrounded the forced busing of the 1970's. What really interested me was the photo, which I have never come across although I have lived in Massachusetts my whole life.Stanley Forman won a Pulitzer for "Old Glory" which pictures a black man being held while a young white male is poised to strike him with the tip of a pole holding an American flag. The scene takes place in front of Boston City Hall during an anti-busing demonstration which Ted Landmark (the pictured black man) was unfortunate to walk through.

Mr. Forman also won a Pulitzer for a picture he had shot a year prior to his picture of the flag. This picture (shown below) was taken at a fire in Boston, and while taking photos of the scene Mr. Forman took this photo moments after a fire escape gave way and sent the child and woman five floors to the pavement. The woman pictured died as a result of the fall while miraculously the child survived. As a result of this photo, which ran on the front page of the Herald American, Forman was characterized as an oppurtunist who chose to take pictures from safety instead of helping those in trouble. When in fact this very photo led to sweeping reform of Boston fire escape laws which have undoubtedly saved countless lives since.

The book itself is a fairly average book with a glossy cover that borrows heavily from the picture it chronicles. The font used for the title is in all caps with a paint splattering effect which leaves dots of color on the white background. It's simple and lacks originality mostly because the picture was not hard to find when the book is based on said picture.

In the end the photo itself and it's photographer are very interesting and warrant more interest on my part, but the book itself delves heavily into why the photo is visually compelling instead of simply leaving it to the reader to comprehend and providing the setting it was in (which it does but I feel the setting is lost in the details). In all likelihood I would not read this book if it were not for my class, mostly because I know the setting in which this picture took place and all I would need to see is the photo and a brief history of the actual event itself.

I feel like this post can not end so abruptly, so I'm going to dally for a moment.......wait for it........OK, now we can say goodbye.